


Alacazar & Elena

by chrysalisdreams



Series: Lost Princess [1]
Category: Elena of Avalor (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Slight crossover with Frozen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-09
Updated: 2017-04-09
Packaged: 2018-10-16 21:12:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10579560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chrysalisdreams/pseuds/chrysalisdreams
Summary: “There is no cure for the grief of loss of loved ones but time, and memory,” Alacazar told the girl trapped in the amulet. “Always remember them. Remember the good. Remember the love. It will sustain you.”





	

The Royal Sorcerer of Avalor, the great Alacazar, was an old man. He was a father late in life, his wife many years younger than he was, and his period of service to Avalor had been decades of scholarly work in a peaceful kingdom. He was a man of peace who preferred wisdom over spells. Magic had been abundant to draw from for his spells, but most often, a knowledge of history and a kind approach would provide a more solid answer to any of the kingdom's problems than a quick spell would have done. The king and queen were not magic users, yet because they were kind parents and wise rulers, Avalor thrived. 

Until Shuriki’s attack, the kingdom had been idyllic. Perhaps it had been the wealth of magic, happiness, and peace that had drawn an evil-doer as selfish and cruel as Shuriki. Sometimes, deep in the night’s hours when the wizard could not sleep, Alacazar wondered if a kingdom could be both vigilant against evil and as idyllically happy as Avalor had been, or if it was that open-heartedness of his people that had left a door open for attack, and conquest. Many a day on his difficult journey away from Avalor, he longed for a fellow scholar with whom to discuss the ponderings of his troubled mind. All he had for company on his quest was a young princess, and she was half-asleep, protected but trapped inside of a Maruvian amulet.

To seek other company was fraught with danger. Alacazar only revealed Elena in her amulet at the times when he thought he had found someone to break the spell and free her. For most of his travels, he was simply an old beggar man, walking with a stick to support his weary frame, sleeping in the woods unless a kind farm wife offered a bed in a barn or shed in exchange for simple work. Alacazar’s fingers were nimble, and he was not above “woman’s work” spinning wool or minding children, and the farm families enjoyed his whimsical stories about playful jaquins and volcanic men made of rocks.

But on those nights, alone in the woods or barren wilds with only Elena for company, he often brought the amulet out and held it in his wrinkled hands. He talked to Elena. He knew she had witnessed Shuriki killing her parents, and the princess had not had time to address the shock of that event. She had not had time to begin to grieve. The Maruvian gem was her body now, in essence a stone that would not feel that pain as flesh-and-blood would. Her mind would be subdued in a kind of dream, yet she would be aware of what went on around her and what was happening to her. Of all the terrible things that had happened to her, the wizard thought that this distance might be a blessing in disguise. 

He talked to Elena about her parents. Both so young when he had met them, newlyweds, nearly children. He missed them. They were like his own children, in many ways, because he had watched them grow into wisdom. He grieved for that specific loss. It prevented him from thinking that Rafa, his infant daughter, might grow past all her baby years before he could see her again. He would miss her first words, her first steps. He would be a stranger to her.

So he spoke to Elena. He soothed her with the words of a family man, telling her about how often her parents had called the young princess brave and resilient. How they had confided that she would someday be a good queen. How they sometimes scolded her for her headstrong ways, but did so while they hid their pride in her self-confidence. “There is no cure for the grief of loss of loved ones but time, and memory,” Alacazar told the girl trapped in the amulet. “Always remember them. Remember the good. Remember the love. It will sustain you.”

Other times, he would say, “We cannot change the past, but we make the future. We will get justice for Avalor.”

And although she would not understand the lore, he also spoke to her of magic, because he greatly missed Zuzo once the distance from Avalor became too great for the spirit guide to reach the wizard. He recited spells and deconstructed them, becoming long-winded in academic debate with himself, pretending that Elena was his apprentice. Maruvian-based magic was difficult, complex, and contradictory at times. This was why Alacazar himself could not free Elena from the amulet. How to do so was what made his journey a quest. It was not enough to take Princess Elena away to safety until they could raise allies to recover Avalor. Alacazar had to find the answer of how to free Elena from the amulet.

Alacazar knew he had no ability as a teacher, which is why he had not taken on an apprentice in spite of his age. He should have, he realized now, for the greater resistance they would have had against Shuriki. Elena was sixteen — the amulet would always keep her spirit and body at sixteen — and intelligent. Actually teaching the princess would have been daunting. Her parents had insisted she learn decorum, but they praised her high-spirited enthusiasm for adventure. If he had tried tutoring the adventurous girl, Alacazar would have tired out before the end of the first lesson. Elena-in-the-amulet was a better student for him. He did not know if she would retain any of his teachings when she was freed from the amulet, but he thought she might, some small understanding tucked away in a corner of her mind, much like the counseling that might help her deal with the death of her parents.

Time stretched on and on. It took many years, but Alacazar journeyed as far as the lands of the genie. He went further, and north, in search of trolls. There, he spent many freezing nights on the North Mountain, cold to him even in summer, before the rock trolls revealed themselves to the wizard. The trolls explained that they did not easily trust humans, because in the surrounding kingdoms, humans only saw magic as sorcery to be feared. The trolls rarely received visitors, but they were willing to welcome Alacazar after they had watched his ways. The old wizard had been respectful to the magic of the mountain.

The Grand Pabbie himself spoke with Alacazar. “You have come a long distance, I see,” the leader of the trolls intoned with grave friendliness. “What brings you to our woods?”

Alacazar presented the amulet without explanation. He held on to the chain while Grand Pabbie gently lifted the pendant, a purple teardrop unlike any natural crystal, in his palm and examined the amulet’s gem. “She is at rest,” he said, “but why is she contained this way?”

“I do not have the methods to free her,” Alacazar explained. “The amulet is protective. It drew her in to save her from a killing curse, and now it contains her in safety, unaging. How to release her is beyond even my great knowledge. Can you help us?”

Grand Pabbie studied the amulet. “I have never seen this magic, but I know its kind,” he said with care. “How interesting. There is freezing power in it’s magic, and much more. It must return to its place of making to open.”

Alacazar nodded. “It can only open at a sacred place. But I cannot do the release. I tried.”

“The amulet will choose,” said Grand Pabbie. “It does not trust. It requires a test of valor. A shining spirit. A clear mind,” The troll gave the wizard a knowing look. “And a pure heart,” he finished.

Alacazar nodded, understanding, his theory confirmed. “I will need to seek her close to Avalor, so that I can move quickly when she is chosen.”

Grand Pabbie considered Alacazar with a long silence that he broke by saying, “This quest will go beyond your mortal years.”

Alacazar was greatly troubled by the prediction. “That is something I didn’t wish to hear, but I welcome knowing,” he said. “I have no apprentice, no one to continue for me. I must find a way.”

“If only you were a rock,” the troll joked to lighten the mood. 

The wizard left the trolls and the North Mountain of Arendelle. The returning journey took much out of him, and by the time he reached the borders of the Kingdom of Isleworth, he had aged beyond his years.

On that day, Alacazar felt his time coming to an end. “Elena,” he said to the princess, from the habit of speaking to the amulet, “I am old, and my life’s story is at the end of it’s final chapter. The last page.” He recalled his conversation with Grand Pabbie of the rock trolls. “I have enough magic left for one spell, a way to leave an author’s note to this story.” With that, the aged wizard summoned the last of his magic to seal his spirit, not in a rock, but in a special book. There he slept, unaware of the passage of time, trusting fate and the Amulet of Avalor. For a short time, the amulet was worn by Isleworth’s Princess Charlotte. Then the magic of the amulet drew it onward, to the peaceful Kingdom of Enchancia, moving in unknowable ways through generations toward its ultimate bearer: Princess Sofia of Enchancia, who finally freed Princess Elena and helped Elena take back her kingdom.

 


End file.
